Page 58 of Vilest Things
Anton’s voice. August’s voice. She’s left a smear of blood on the crossbow. Though she registers movement behind her—carriage doors opening and councilmembers wanting to see what is happening—she doesn’t waste effort asking them to return. She puts every iota of focus she has on watching… watching…
Calla fires. Just as she pulls the trigger, she adjusts her aim, pointing higher than she needs.
The delegation, together, watches the bolt soar through the air. It fires straight while the road starts to bend; it hurtles into the trees right as a breeze blows in from the east, but because Calla has adjusted for the interruption, it pierces perfectly into the camouflaged man perched on a tree branch.
He cries out. Falls to the ground. So, too, does the veil he was holding in place, and when the large swath of camouflage drops, it reveals the people waiting in the forest, clutching swords.
Calla shoots forward without waiting for the guards, drawing her own sword from her belt. She trusts herself more than she trusts anyone here, and given that she ruined this surprise attack, there’s only a brief moment when their opponents will be in disarray before they organize into a new formation. The Weisannas are yelling for the palace guards to take position. For the councilmembers to get back inside. Calla catches “Your Majesty, youcannotbe out here.”
It must twist Anton up to have to feign incompetence. The Palace of Earth did not train August Shenzhi in the same way the Palace of Heavens trained Calla, so August shouldn’t know his way around a sword. Maybe that’s whyKasa was the one who survived longer, the one smart enough to shut himself away after the mess the other palace made.
Calla slashes hard, charging into the offense. With barely any time to swing momentum into her arm, Calla cuts down one man. Ducks a woman’s attack, parries for two clangs before she sees an opening, and plunges her sword through the woman’s ribs. There couldn’t have been more than twenty hiding in the trees. A small number have rushed out onto the road, while others pivoted and used the trees to go around, but it’ll be harder to attack the delegation with the palace guards at the ready. If Calla hadn’t caught the veil, then they might have broken in from the sides. Now all they have is brute force, but the numbers are on the palace’s side.
Calla hauls her sword out of the woman. Blood arcs from the motion, falls like a sheet of rain onto her shoes. Though the woman coughs out a viscous spatter too, darkening her deep-green garb, she speaks nothing before she falls. No threat, no battle cry. Nothing to indicate what they’re attacking for or where they came from.
Nothing to indicate whether this is the Dovetail, as Calla has been waiting for. But whyhere?
“Shit,” Calla mutters.
A collision of metal draws her attention into the trees. The guards have joined the fray. Calla moves rapidly, plunging through the gaps of the forest and wincing against the sharp lower branches scratching her face. Beyond the scream of battle and the in-out panting of her breath, it’s the unfamiliar thicket underfoot that rustles loudest. Her maneuvers do not change from the way she navigates San-Er, despite how substantially different the environments are. The cities swap bark for steel, dig up earth and let buildings put down roots instead, but Talin is a kingdom made up of labyrinths all the same. Here, Calla slams herself through a narrow space between trees, and just as she emerges into a small clearing, she barges in on a fighter getting the upper hand over a Weisanna. The guard hits the ground, fight finished. His opponent has enough momentum that he swings at Calla in the same exhale.
“Who are you?” Calla demands. “Who sent you?”
The man raises his sword. He doesn’t spit curses or launch into a rallying cry. He plunges downward; when Calla dodges, he’s quick to slash left to right, moving with untrained technique but fiercely strong conviction.
In another life, maybe Calla would have joined this group. The girl she was, rather—the one who’s been lost, a name vanished into the wind. If she’d survived Rincun, she might have wanted more, might have traveled the kingdom to thank the gods for keeping her alive, plotting an attack on the capital to set the scene for Talin’s liberation.
But in this life, Calla Tuoleimi is sick of messes in her way when she’s trying to clean up a bigger one. For the grander survival of each small village dotting the kingdom, she will throw sacrifices onto the pyre. She was willing to kill eighty-seven civilians in the cities. She looked Leida Miliu in the eye before gutting her. Twenty nameless fighters in the forest is nothing. The heavens will understand their mission being cut short.
Calla ducks. She feels the sword meet her hair, taking off a lock that didn’t move as fast as the rest of her. The metals thuds against a thin trunk; her dark hairs flutter into the twigs and sodden leaves. Before the man can tug his weapon from the bark, Calla returns the blow.
She hears metal scrape flesh. The man throws out an elbow, interrupting Calla’s sword, but it’s too late. An inch is a mile on an artery. Skin splits open; blood spurts in an instant. Before Calla can step back, slick liquid gets in her eyes, trickles down her throat as thickly as sludge. Though she swipes at her face and pulls away fast to break the close proximity, it takes a terrifying few seconds to clear her sight, to swallow down the pungent taste.
Palace training never covered this about battle. They taught her patterns of attack, pointed out technical calculations and logical flaws, but she learned desperation on her own. After the Palace of Heavens fell, the council deliberated for months before confirming it was Calla Tuoleimi who committed the massacre.An intruder, surely,half of the nobility argued. The princess on the surveillancefootage fought with reckless abandon, and they didn’t remember teaching that. They didn’t remember giving her anger.
She knows this is what makes her good. She also knows this is what the palace tries to beat out of its generals, because desperation is fast, but it’s also blinding.
A whisper, at her side. Calla brings her sword up, but someone else has blocked the attack for her. There are two new fighters on scene—when the second rears around to swing, Calla goes low, opting for a brute-force stab to push him off-balance.
“Calla, give me room.”
Irritation prickles in her chest. Instead of making room, she changes her attack. Her opponent is still fighting despite his critical wound. She swerves to his other side and pushes him right in Anton’s way, just as Anton incapacitates the first. He has a split second to flash a look of disbelief her way. Then he cuts down the second man too.
“What wasthat?” Anton demands. His voice booms through the trees. While their immediate surroundings have cleared, the sound of conflict rings loud at the tree line.
“What are you doing?” Calla fires back. She swivels around. Continues scanning the forest for movement. “You’re going to get caught.”
Anton Makusa has found himself a sword, likely filched from one of the Weisannas. It’s a bizarre sight: August’s level expression paired with the splatter of Anton’s battle lust. Anyone looking upon him in this moment would know that he is an invader.
“I came here to helpyou.” Anton swings his sword. “The Palace of Earth taught the basics, Princess.”
That is how Anton Makusa learned to fight. But August Shenzhi did not go through the same teachings. August Shenzhi is a golden vase of the palace, protected by Galipei instead of his own glistening skin.
“You—” Calla’s attention swivels to the right. There’s a phantom click afew paces away. A hunched figure behind a bush, pointing something silver directly at them.
She shoves in front of Anton and throws her hand out. In that moment Calla isn’t thinking of a command. She barely knows what she’s trying to do, but she remembers her fight during the flash flood alarms, the way the brute of a man hadn’t touched her, yet struck her hard enough to send her flying. She remembers the Hollow Temple and Pampi Magnes moving the world around her by mere gesture.
The air heaves. Just as a projectile flies from the attacker’s weapon, it shoots backward instead, a flame engulfing the trees.
